300: Rise of an Empire Movie Review

 
300: Rise of an Empire picks up right where the first movie left off. It’s the end of Battle of Thermopylae where brave King Leonidas (Gerard Butler) and the mighty 300 Spartans have fallen after a valiant effort to hold back the nasty King (poo-poo head) Xerxes and the evil Persian Empire hell-bent on conquering all of Greece.  It’s the war between the noble white freedom loving Greeks (Athenians) and the tyrannical, repulsive brown Persians. If you want to shut down your brain and watch one hour forty minutes of mind numbing violence and an occasional boob or two then I think you’ll have a good time. But even if you have the teensiest understanding of global politics, you’ll see that this movie has more in common with today’s US foreign policies, mainly when it comes to Iran, and strong white supremacist undertones that are unavoidable and downright scary.

Ionian Revolt

The problem with Rise of an Empire is its black and white approach to good and evil. The movie starts off with a monologue by Queen Gorgo of Sparta (Lena Headey) who explains the origins of the Greco-Persian war:  “The war started like any other war, with a grievance. The Persian King Darius annoyed by the Greek notion of Freedom, has come to Greece to bring us to heel.” In reality, the Persians didn’t attack Greece because they hated their ‘freedom’ (a contentious argument in the first place) but because King Darius who was battling a rebellions and uprisings some of which were backed by the ‘peace-loving’ Athenians. Most notably Ionian Revolt where Athenians provided their own troops fearing the growing influence of Darius.  Essentially, the Persians weren’t annoyed by the Greek notion of “freedom” they were just sick of them meddling in their affairs. Even ‘evil’ empires hate it when ‘freedom’ ingraining ‘democracies’ wage proxy wars. (But thank God that doesn’t happen anymore). 

Xerxes after after taking a dip in pure evil

Historical facts aside (they’re for nerds anyways), let’s look at the reasoning the movie provides for why King Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro) attacked Greece. After King Darius was killed by Themistocles at the battle of Marathon (King Darius actually died died of natural causes) Xerxes assented to the throne and greave stricken and confused he was corrupted by Artemisia (Eva Green), the main baddie for this movie.  She gathered wizards and mystics from every corner of the empire (so there is supposed to be magic in this movie?) and sent young Xerxes into the desert on some sort of spiritual journey. Xerxes stumbles upon some well and there he gives himself up to an evil power or as Queen Gorgo puts it “so evil and so perverse, that no part of the human man that Xerxes once was survived”. Why and what this evil power is has been left unexplained but we must believe that Xerxes became who he was after a little dip in some random evil puddle (maybe it was the Lazarus Pit).

Young Artemisa

What about Artemisia? The malevolent bitch-general of the Persian navy. What’s her reason for being so malicious? Well the reason Artemisia hates Greece because her whole family was killed by Greek Hoplites who proceeded to rape her and made her a slave on a Greek ship (she clearly over reacted, Athenians were just "liberating" her). After years spent in Greek captivity, she was left for dead where she was saved by that Persian emissary (Peter Mensah) who was kicked in the well in the first movie. Yup, that’s right; that slimy black guy took a dying girl, raised her, trained her to be a formidable warrior who ultimately rose to the rank of general is such a villain (Damn Persians giving women some equal opportunity. how dare they!). Think about it for a minute, these are the antagonist: Deeply wounded individuals whose lives were destroyed by Greek meddling.

Let’s look at the protagonist for a moment. Our hero is Themistocles, a prominent politician/warrior who advocated for a strong Athenian naval fleet before and after the second Greco-Persian war. He’s a courageous, democracy-loving man who “would rather die as a free man than a slave.”  Again, let’s forget the history for a second (this movie certainly does). Artemisia offered to negotiate (like Xerxes did in the first movie) and like Leonidas in the first movie; Themistocles the noble, loyal servant of Greece would have none of that. He’s a man who believes “a man must protect his family and nation” so negotiating with a tyrant whose army is ten times larger than his is out of the question (brilliant thinking there!). Even though the Athenians beat the Persians at the sea, Xerxes burned down Athens. That meant thousands of Athenians lost their lives anyway, on the battle and at home.  Process that logic for a minute. And here’s the ironic part; after the war ended, Themistocles caused hostility between Sparta and Athens (surprise, surprise) which got him ostracized and exiled form Athens and hunted by the Spartans. He fled to Asia Minor (Persian Empire) where he later entered the service of King Artaxerxes I (son of Xerxes, the big baddy form the movies) who made him governor of Magnesia where he lived for the rest of his life.

Athens is considered to be the birth place of democracy so that means it’s all pure and any legitimate criticism is out of the question. Well turns out, Athens was the worst when it came to Greek city-states in terms of fair play. Athens was constantly at war with other Greek city-sates and even by the standards of the time; Athenian society was notoriously chauvinistic. Their democratic society was open to only a small group of men and granted women absolutely no legal rights and depended on slave labor the most.. The Persians, on the other hand ensured religious freedom built roads and infrastructure, established a postal service, set the standard for large governments, and contrary to the movie did not participate in slavery. It’s really hard to swallow that the Persians are the bad guys here hell bent on destroying Greek individualism when the Persian Empire was immensely diverse, encompassing Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Judea, and Arabia, so pretty much the Middle East today (which we all know is the present day spawning pit of evil).  

 And just so there's absolutely no doubt left, Persians are shown as ugly, unkempt, irrational, menacing, untrustworthy, and cowardly. It’s not just their philosophy that is hideous and unsettling but also their physical appearances. Though vastly multicultural, they’re all shown as a soulless, faceless, hive-minded anti-individualist army that bows unquestioningly to a certified ‘tyrant’. And that’s the buzzword: Tyrant. Brandish that word around recklessly and it gives us complete freedom to antagonize and undermine all that the Persian Empire offered the world. Athenians on the other hand are cookie cutter cutouts of what a superior human being is suppose look like. They're so much alike that it becomes difficult to tell them apart. They’re all macho, militaristic, single-minded muscular men who’re hell bent on war and adhere to the “no negotiation with tyrants policy”, but that’s different because they’re white and democratic ...well sort of democratic.

Think of it this way, Rise of an Empire glorifies a militaristic culture whose main philosophy is submission of individual self to a quasi-fascist collective. On the other hand where multiple races working together to a common goal are evil. Isn’t that the main argument white supremacists use? That mixed societies tend to be destructive unclean hoards, so diversity is bad and races shouldn’t mix. Where pure cultures emphasizing sameness, blind loyalty, and conformity are superior. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say this movie was written by Clayton Bigsby (Dave Chappelle’s sketch of a blind, unintentional KKK-member who happened to be Black) in conjunction with right-wing fundamentalists and the US military-industrial complex.

Clayton Bigsby

Not to say that people who worked on this movie are racist, just like many of us are not racist, but we do things like seeing a black guy and instantly associating him with crime, or seeing a Muslim and associating him/her with terrorism; these acts at their core are racist, and this movie is no different. Good intentions can take you only so far, if you’re not willing to back them up with good actions.

300: Rise of an Empire is sloppy movie with intentional or unintentional racist, misogynist and jingoistic undertones. It’s a quasi-fascist, militaristic wet dream glorifying undying loyalty for the nation and dislike for diversity or multiculturalism. Its reductive trope of “us” vs “them” is a Klan member’s dream come true, and can be used to propagate their lovely message of white supremacy and hatred towards the Middle East.